Thursday, July 31, 2003
Rachel Carson's Ecological Genocide
A pandemic is slaughtering millions, mostly children and pregnant women -- one child every 15 seconds; 3 million people annually; and over 100 million people since 1972 --but there are no protestors clogging the streets or media stories about this tragedy. These deaths can be laid at the doorstep of author Rachel's Carson. Her1962 bestselling book Silent Spring detailed the alleged "dangers" of the pesticide DDT, which had practically eliminated malaria. Within ten years, the environmentalist movement had convinced the powers that be to outlaw DDT. Denied the use of this cheap, safe and effective pesticide, millions of people -- mostly poor Africans -- have died due to the environmentalist dogma propounded by Carson's book. Her coterie of admirers at the U.N. and environmental groups such as Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, the World Wildlife Fund and the Environmental Defense Fund have managed to bring malaria and typhus back to sub-Saharan Africa with a vengeance.
"This is like loading up seven Boeing 747 airliners each day, then deliberately crashing them into Mt. Kilimanjaro," said Dr. Wenceslaus Kilama, Malaria Foundation International Chairman.[...]
Interesting stuff. If this article is correct (and I'm certainly not qualified, nor have I read enough, to know), then the ban on DDT is yet another case of crap science causing major problems. In this case, not just slow economic growth, but millions of deaths.
DDT has been scientifically proven to weaken eggshells laid by birds to the point that several species were near complete extinction. Notice that the quotes supporting DDT's effectiveness in the article you linked are mostly from the 1960s, and the quotes linking DDT to malaria prevention are all attributed to one person.
It's important to read these articles with a critical eye.
Hmmm...the article certainly takes a strong advocacy position, and I'm no expert as I said...
I do find several different names of people advocating the use of the chemical for malaria or "several tropical arthropod-borne diseases" - discounting the many quotes that merely go to the "diseases are bad" point. Also, the article does address birds populations - many seemed to increase during DDT use...? Does it mean that *all* bird populations increased? The article doesn't state.
The fact that much data may be old doesn't mean all that much, as DDT hasn't been in wide spread use for some time.
I think the article does a good job of asking that we re-examine conventional, received wisdom, and it certainly makes it sound worthwhile.
As I say, I'm not an expert, but it certainly makes me want to hear more.
This article is correct.
Read Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World Revisted", it is the oldest source for ddt-banning, the raeson: population controlling
The DDT outlaw wasn't based on Carson's book, it was based on evidence gathered as a result of Carson's book. The article is bad science, too: very speculative, and it uses a lot of equivocation and faulty logic, including unfounded appeals to authority and some outright fudging.
It's based on the premise that people are more important than the environment, yet never acknowledges that people must live *in* the environment. DDT had a demonstrable effect upon all sorts of wildlife (many species began to recover immediately after the ban was implemented, which is suggestive), plain and simple.
Furthermore, there are other pesticides than DDT - they're just more expensive. It's not Ms. Carson's -- or DDT's -- fault that countries with mosquito problems aren't willing to pay for proper mosquito control.